Pesticide-restriction bill aims to protect lobsters

Martin B. Cassidy |
March 27, 2013
| Updated: March 27, 2013 7:00pm

Lobsterman Tony Carlo aboard his boat in Rowayton Harbor in Rowayton, Conn., July 18, 2012. Carlo blames pesticides used in landscaping and pest control treatments for the declining lobster population.

A law restricting use of two common mosquito-control chemicals known to harm lobsters could be a step toward salvaging Connecticut's beleaguered stocks of the crustaceans, which once supported a $100 million-a-year industry, state lobstermen said this week.

"For the first time in 14 years, the state is kind of doing the right thing and listening to us," said Tony Carlo, a Norwalk lobsterman. "We strongly believe if this happens in a few years, the lobster industry could have a future. They have to do something to save the sea animals."

Roger Frate Sr., a Darien lobsterman, said state environmental officials and others have discounted the notion that pesticides caused a precipitous die-off of lobsters, attributing the cause to other factors, such as high water temperatures and low levels of dissolved oxygen in Long Island Sound.

"I've been fighting this battle for 14 years so I'm getting tired, but I'm also hopeful that this could be positive," he said.

While a similar ban died in the House of Representatives last session, state Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford, and state Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford, said they believe the legislation to control use of resmethrin and methoprene has momentum because of an ongoing study launched last fall because small accumulations of the harmful chemicals were detected in lobster tissue.

Connecticut's mosquito-control efforts now rely mostly on pre-emptive application of larvicides after batches of mosquitoes test positive for West Nile virus. But health officials in New York City and on Long Island still conduct aerial spraying of the chemicals.

Backer said the state and most municipalities now mostly use bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, or BTI, a bacteria-based agent that is effective killing mosquito larvae but does not affect lobsters.

"The substances and compounds are designed to kill things, and they don't just kill mosquito larvae," Backer said of methoprene and resmethrin. "Furthermore, nobody knows their synergistic effect, and we do know they are showing up in some lobsters."

Meyer said he believes the proposed restrictions are justified after listening to testimony of lobster fishermen, who say pesticides in storm-water run-off caused the die-off of lobster, and cite the presence of the chemicals in lobster tissue.

"The lobstermen felt there is clear evidence that methoprene and resmethrin were causing the die-off, and the necropsies revealed that there was methoprene and resmethrin," he said. "We have had a dramatic fall of in lobsters from Greenwich right up to the border of Rhode Island and we're very anxious to see this industry return."

At the industry's peak in 1998, Connecticut lobstermen pulled in more than 3.7 million pounds of lobsters. In 2011, that catch had fallen to 142,000 pounds, down from 412,000 pounds in 2010. Catches in the western basin of Long Island Sound, which includes waters from Greenwich to Bridgeport, plummeted to just above 20 percent of 2010's total haul, or from 84,100 in 2010 to 18,200 pounds last year.

On state lands, environmental officials already keep the use of methoprene and resmethrin minimal, though he said the bill would still allow their use in cases where DEEP officials believe it is warranted to protect public health.

"Our preference would have been for everybody to wait until the study was done and then reconsider, but despite that, the language of the bill seems to allow us to use those substances in cases when we need to," Hyatt said. "It would allow us to do what we need to do."

DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain said the roughly $90,000 study should be complete by this summer; it will analyze and compare levels of the pesticides in 90 lobsters taken from Long Island Sound with 40 lobsters taken from waters elsewhere in New England.